Honey laid an egg!

Something special happened today: Honey laid her first egg in about five months or so. She started going broody in December and we broke her of it once and then she went broody again and got to hatch a few chicks. Above is a photo of her and her adopted chicks. Today I stopped by to check and see if she and her chicks needed water or feed and what did I spy - but an egg laying on the ground. I had read that Cochins lay white eggs, but her's is brown- no wonder we were always confused about who was laying what eggs last winter. We were never certain whether the little white eggs were her's or the Cornish. After I picked up the egg, Honey was acting like she wanted out of confinement, so I let her out (leaving her eleven adolescents behind). She headed up to the the chicken pen and seemed to be quite interested in the rooster - who was returning her attention with like kind. So I let her in and sure enough...lets just say that they she tolerated his affection without protest. I checked on her at bed time and all the adult birds were inside on the roosts, but she was at the door wanting out. I carried her back to her chicks (who were quite relieved to have their mom back). I'll be interested to see what happens next and when she'll be ready to leave her chicks for good. Her chicks are about two months old now - not wee ones anymore. I think they would be fine on their own. And we sure could use another layer even if it were an occasional layer like a Cochin. Two of our other layers are broody right now and I have them in a kennel without bedding, hoping to break them of their wicked or rather natural habits. And we have a crippled hen. I have no idea what has hapenned to her but she can't walk, but is still laying some eggs, and is generally a good layer of lovely blue eggs. Needless to say our egg production has reduced significantly so we will be hoarding our eggs for a while until times improve.

Chicken laying flourescent eggs

We have a buff cochin laying flourescent pink and yellow eggs! Here is a peak at the eggs she is sitting on. April Fools! Honey has gone broody for the second time this winter and this time we are rejoicing. We are saving Brahma eggs to put underneath her. As soon as we have a dozen eggs we will exchange them for the fake eggs. We could of course just sacrifice a couple real eggs, but they are sooo precious.


This isn't the best picture of a broody hen. But you can see that she is ruffled and upset with me for disturbing her. She has just gone broody, so we should have plenty of time to get the real eggs under her. Unfortunately all the birds like to lay their eggs in the same box. So every day we have to reach under her and take out the real eggs. For one , we don't just want to hatch any of the eggs. Two, it would be disastrous to add an egg every day or two because they need twenty one days to hatch and once the first eggs begin hatching she will only sit on the eggs for so long before leaving them to care for the new chicks. Ideally we should have a broody box to move her to. There she would have a more spacious box where she could get off her eggs to move just a foot or two to drink water and eat some food. We might get a broody box up and running here before we put the real eggs under her.

As far as April Fools Day goes, it has never gotten much attention in my family because there is a much bigger celebration going on; My Mom's Birthday. Happy 50th Birthday Mom! We are having the family over for thai food tonight accompanied by some special drinks. So what am I doing here on the computer? Time to start prepping. We are having spring rolls, chicken basil stir fry, rice and pad thai. For drinks options include Saporro, a Mango cocktail, Champagne ( and nice bottle) and most likely wine. Should be a good time.